I kept wishing that I could stop reading this book because it was so ugly, but I couldn't because it was too compelling. It almost physically hurt to read it because it is just bursting with too many sights, too many smells, too much STUFF all falling apart and disintegrating, things falling apart, children scrambling for any kind of understanding, and all this roly-poly, hurdy-gurdy dialog tripping along, ugh. And nothing has so much brought back for me the sensation of being a child in a family, but the truth is, I don't really want that sensation. You know how Tolstoy is bursting full of life in a happy way, and even what's sinister is endearing? The Man Who Loved Children reads a little bit like a refutation, where even what might be endearing is sinister, and the only possible respite comes from the ability to stare the ugly truth in the face and see it for what it is. It is bursting full of a kind of life, but it is a life more like decay. Well, in conclusion, I think this was a very good novel and showed a certain angle of truth extraordinarily well, but thank god there are other angles too.